


i want to see you game, boys

by andsoitgoes



Series: leave yourself intact (i will be coming back) [1]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 19:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andsoitgoes/pseuds/andsoitgoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras, Jehan and Marius spend a semester in London, Courfeyrac doesn't want to be a superhero anymore, and Grantaire shows Olive Garden what they're missing. Animorphs!AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i want to see you game, boys

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! This is my very first post at AO3 :) It was originally written for a different fandom, but I've reworked it for the barricade boys. You might need a little background knowledge about Animorphs to understand this, but I'd be happy to answer any questions. Unbeta'd, so please do not hesitate to point out errors. Thank you for reading!

At first, Jehan thinks Courfeyrac’s cheating on him. He’s spent the entire semester with daily texts during class, coming back to his dorm to hand-written letters complete with pressed flowers in his student mailbox, and bi-weekly Skype sessions that more often than not end in sex. The decision to take a semester in London studying early European poetry had been difficult, but Courfeyrac had insisted that Jehan go. They’d made promises to talk as often as possible without being smothering, and they’d both agreed that their relationship was strong enough to handle it. Jehan’s decision was made much easier by Enjolras and Marius agreeing to study abroad in London as well, interning at the United Nations for the semester.

When it stops abruptly one day in early April, Jehan starts to worry.

“Courf,” he starts one day when his boyfriend finally answers his phone, after they’ve been through the _How are you_ s and _I love you_ s and _Tell me everything, don’t leave a single minute out_ s, phrases and sentiments that Jehan had never thought he’d be able to share with anyone, but slowly has come to rely on. “Is everything okay, back home?”

“Yeah, of course! Why do you ask?” Courfeyrac rushes, and Jehan _knows_ he’s lying. He _knows_ Courfeyrac, knows his voice and how it changes when Courfeyrac’s happy, when he’s stressed, when he’s desperate to fuck and when he’s desperate to be fucked. He could write a symphony fully composed of the tones and lilts and pitches of Courfeyrac’s voice, excited and anxious and blissed out and ruined turned into complex harmonies, rising and falling just as surely as Courfeyrac’s emotions. 

Jehan knows he’s lying, and he feels the tug of _betrayal_ just behind his navel. “Oh, nothing. You just seem…distant.”

Grantaire shrugs off his comment, blaming school and Le Musain as distractions. They talk for another hour before Jehan has to go to bed, and he clings to their goodbye, the happy laugh in Courfeyrac’s voice as he murmurs _I love you, too_ a final time. Jehan hangs up and rubs the sore spot on his stomach, the growing knot in his belly teeming with accusations and hurt.

When Courfeyrac stops returning his phone calls a week later, Jehan finally breaks and tells Enjolras in a sangria-induced breakdown. Enjolras squeezes his arm, and tells him that Grantaire’s been absent, too, and Jehan just doesn’t have the heart to tell him that Grantaire’s never really been _present_. Instead, he hides both their phones in the breadbox next to their refrigerator, grabs a bottle of white, and counts down the days until Boston.

\-----

Courfeyrac’s has always wanted to be a superhero, something his parents laughed over during their dinner parties. _”Have you ever seen anything this adorable?”_ his father’s boss would coo, kneeling down to eye-level with ten year old Courfeyrac in his Superman pajamas, cape and all. _”Saving the human race is quite an undertaking, young man.”_

Courfeyrac’s father had laughed and pressed a warm palm to Courfeyrac’s shoulder, saying over his scotch, _”Yes, well, Courfeyrac has always been very ambitious,”_ and the conversation would turn to Courfeyrac’s grades in school and his musical ability and equestrian prowess, Courfeyrac standing barefoot and sleepy eyed as his mother coaxes him to play his violin, _just one more time for our guests, Courfeyrac, don’t be rude._

He’s always wanted to be a superhero, but never like this. Not with real-life aliens that crash-land their space ships on the shortcut from Olive Garden to Joly’s apartment following a semi-Les Amis dinner. Certainly not with freakish animal morphing abilities that came from touching some glowing, radioactive blue cube, their only real defense against parasitic slugs that can control anyone or anything, once they get inside.

The worse part of it all is that they can’t tell anyone, not a single soul, because they don’t know who’s a Controller and who isn’t. Combeferre (and how _fucking_ weird is it that one of their best friends from high school was actually an alien the entire time, masquerading as a human to collect intel and trying to save just a couple of souls in Boston, Massachusetts) says that the second their anonymity is lost, the war for Earth is over. The Yeerks will find them, use their bodies as vessels to trap everyone they can until the entire world is under Yeerk command.

Courfeyrac thinks of Jehan joining the Sharing, the Yeerks’ front, where they lure people into the bully-free, no tolerance zone of _friendship_ and _humanity_ under the pretense of joining together to make the world a better place. The Sharing says that, but then handcuffs their new recruits and shoves their heads into a pool of slime so an alien can worm its way into their ear canal and stretch itself across their brain, sliding between neurons and grooves to control their every motion and word as it rifles through their thoughts and memories and fears. The Yeerk reads them like a well-kept book as they hide in the very corner of their own mind and pray that the Yeerks don’t turn their family into Controllers, too. He thinks of Jehan becoming one, thinks of the Yeerk using sweet, _good_ Jehan’s easy trust against him and turning Marius and Enjolras almost immediately at whatever the London branch of The Sharing is called, and it makes him sick to his stomach.

He would never have believed any of this if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes; a man’s torso attached to a horse’s body with no mouth or nose and an extra set of stalked eyes, body and lethal, blade-edged tail all covered in the same electric blue fur. First the Andalite (and Courfeyrac’s tongue moves foreign around the word, even four days later) from the space ship, and then Combeferre, as he revealed himself to all of them- Cosette, Bahorel, Feuilly, Joly, Grantaire, and Courfeyrac. He hasn’t seen a Yeerk, not yet, and he’s not sure if he would be able to get a good look at it before crushing it underfoot. 

He thinks of his new talent, something he could never add to his resume. Courfeyrac barely understands what it does or how it works, just that he can touch a dog (or any animal, or human or alien) and have their DNA seep into his body as the animal enters a trance for a minute. Once he removes his hand, he can turn into that same dog, pulling its genetic code through his mind as he painlessly (but hideously; he’s seen himself in the mirror morphing, and it is random and nonsensical and horrifying) changes into an identical copy of that dog. 

There is a terrifying burden on his shoulders, to save mankind and therefore the rest of the galaxy from the Yeerks. He can feel the weight of their mission against his neck, tangible and heavy with no give at all, relentlessly pressing down into his spine even as he considers that they’re _kids_ , they’re barely out of high school, they can’t possibly save the entire galaxy. And besides, he doesn’t want this. His superhero phase is over; he doesn’t want eternal glory or fame, he wants Jehan in New York, he wants Central Park walks on Friday afternoons and Sunday mornings, the occasional trip back to Massachusetts to confirm that moving four hours south was the second best thing he’s ever done, nestled safely behind falling hopelessly and forever in love with Jehan Prouvaire.

Still, he finds himself at these stupid team meetings, lying to Jehan about where he really is, getting ready to start their crusade against an invisible and secret alien invasion. Jehan comes home in a week, and Courfeyrac would really appreciate it if they could wrap all this up by then.

“I’m never going to The Olive Garden again,” Grantaire murmurs, and Courfeyrac is pretty sure that he’s getting drunk by proxy, based on the whiskey breath coming out of his friend’s mouth. He silently agrees- everything in a five hundred foot radius around the restaurant reminds him of that night.

Combeferre raises an eyebrow. “You were there three hours ago for dinner, Grantaire.”

“I had to show them what they’d be missing, so they’d feel bad about what they’d done. Inviting aliens is not a joke.”

Everyone is silent for a moment as Bahorel leans over and takes the beer out of Grantaire’s hand, and the meeting continues.

Courfeyrac can barely handle how strange this all is, the left-behind remnants of Les Amis sitting bare-footed in an old warehouse that Bahorel had found during his quests for a suitable foam party venue. Complete with two smaller rooms that serve as bedrooms during late night missions, a homely little kitchen and a grime-covered bathroom that Cosette and Joly had spent days sanitizing, the warehouse is their rendezvous point. They’ve scattered themselves around the cavernous main room, stretching lazily across worn couches and armchairs that Bahorel and Grantaire have “found”. 

“All I’m saying is that we’ve got to figure out how to remove The Sharing inconspicuously,” Joly continues, hands clasped on his thighs.

“Can we wait until Combeferre comes back?” Courfeyrac asks. The alien (Courfeyrac can’t even remember, let alone pronounce his Andalite name) had gone back down to Kentucky for the weekend, meeting with other humans who know about the invasion. The rest of the group agrees readily, and they move onto the next point in the meeting: Joly’s first time morphing.

Joly is the only one who has yet to morph; he’d had a panic attack after starting his first morph, completely unhinged by the freakish aspect of it. The rest have done so in the privacy of their bedrooms, turning into their neighbors’ cats and dogs and learning to control the animal minds. Bahorel had started to morph in the zoo immediately after he’d acquired a monkey, right in front of Cosette’s veterinarian cousin, and Combeferre had dragged him out of the room while Cosette desperately tried to convince her cousin that Bahorel had been wearing those gloves all along, and _yes, they did look like monkey hands, it’s a new fad around here._

They want to keep an eye on Joly’s morph, unsure of the consequences of rearranging bones and muscles when the owner of said bones and muscles was so very against it.

“Ready, Joly?” Cosette asks, and Joly nods. She and Bahorel are wearing their morphing suits, skin-tight spandex because it’s the only material that is able to morph with their bodies as a second skin. Bahorel begins his morph, and Courfeyrac averts his eyes. He doesn’t need any more fuel for his nightmares.

When he’s sure a gorilla has taken Bahorel’s place, Courfeyrac looks back at the center of the room. An impossibly large, impossibly strong silverback gorilla moves to the edge of the circle, security in case Joly should lose control of his morph.

“Just keep calm, Joly. Think of the dog in your mind and let it happen,” Cosette encourages, her voice calming and balanced, even as Courfeyrac’s heart starts to race. 

Joly nods, and his morph begins.

The fur comes first; he’s covered in shaggy brown hair, and Courfeyrac has to grin at that. Joly’s ears grow, sliding to the top of his head and becoming pointed just as his tailbone elongates and forms. His knees invert, and Courfeyrac nearly cries at the grinding sound, though he knows it causes Joly no pain. A snout forms and pushes Joly’s face out, canines growing in sharp and white. There’s a sloshing sound in the silent room, and Courfeyrac knows that Joly’s organs are changing as he shrinks down to half his human size.

Two minutes after Joly had started his morph, a chocolate Lab sits in his place, tail thumping behind him.

“You in there, Joly?” Cosette asks, crouching down next to the dog. “Let us know you’re okay.”

Bahorel mutters, and everyone starts; thought-speak is still relatively new and strange. Courfeyrac really, _really_ doesn’t like the imposition of literal voices in his head, but he’s forced himself to appreciate the necessity of communication in morph. 

“Yeah,” Feuilly breathes, and even though they’ve had these powers for a couple of days already, they’re all still stunned by the entire process. “Hey, Joly, see if you can get up, move around.”

This was the part they had been dreading- Combeferre had been very specific about the concept of _mind over matter_ while in morph. There’s a huge tug-o-war match between human mind and animal instincts at the beginning of each morph; Courfeyrac still needs a couple minutes to regain control of himself each time he switches forms. For Joly, someone who has dedicated his life to studying the human body and mind, someone who knows the ins-and-outs of each vessel and nerve of the human body, this is so, _so_ unnatural and unsettling. There’s no logic to morphing, and Joly had been overwhelmed by Combeferre’s explanation of body-resetting affects after morphing, how they could be injured badly in animal morphs but perfectly fine after reverting to their own bodies. Bahorel’s lost his tattoo, much to his chagrin, and the loss of physical law has left Joly reeling. Courfeyrac can only hope that their brilliant and capable Joly makes it through this with his sanity intact. 

As the dog slowly but surely eases itself up, Cosette lets out a little squeal as Courfeyrac and Grantaire bump fists.

They let Joly race around the room for the better part of an hour before he morphs back. He practices the morph several more times, moving between bodies like the flip of a light switch. On, off, dog, human. When Joly feels comfortable enough in morphing, Bahorel practices thought-speak for a bit with him, and then changes back into his own body. There’s a collective ease of the tension in the room; Courfeyrac knows that Bahorel is in control of his morph, but there’s nothing quite like a five hundred pound gorilla to keep him at the edge of his seat.

“How was it?” Feuilly asks once everyone’s human again (and God, how fucking _weird_ is it that that is a normal statement in Courfeyrac’s life right now), and everyone turns their attention to Joly.

Joly’s face is blank, and Courfeyrac’s expecting the worst. This crazy world is really a bit much to ask of someone who lives his life through hand sanitizer and a careful regiment of immunity-enhancing vitamins, no matter how smart and loyal he may be. Cosette’s already moving off the couch, arms open for a cautious hug when a smile starts to spread across Joly’s face.

“It’s incredible,” he breathes, and Grantaire and Bahorel let out matching whoops of joy. “Honestly, it’s- it’s unbelievable. It’s so messed up and insane but at the same time, it’s so freaking _cool_.”

Cosette cheers, and jumps up to hug Joly. Courfeyrac grins, and leans forward in his seat.

“So, tell us, who smells the worst? It’s gotta be Grantaire, right? I don’t think he’s washed that Green Day shirt since Enjolras left, just in case there’s a hint of _eau d’ Apollo_ left in the fabric.”

Grantaire launches himself off the couch with a battle cry, and Courfeyrac barely has time to defend himself before he’s cackling into the thread-bare rug covering the floor, Grantaire demanding for him to _take it back, you bastard, don’t think I haven’t seen you curled up with Jehan’s boxers when you watch Friends reruns_ as Bahorel and Feuilly cheer them on. Courfeyrac turns his head to the side, watching Cosette and Joly as they settle onto the now-vacant sofa. Joly looks lighter, as if the weight of his fear has been taken off his shoulders; Courfeyrac can’t even imagine how good it must feel, to have a hidden gift in this fucked up little Earth-saving package they’ve been handed.

 _If this is what comes of all this insanity,_ Courfeyrac thinks as a Joly laughs easily, face nearly split in half with the force of his smile, _then it might all be worth it._

\-----

Courfeyrac is in an exam when Jehan, Enjolras and Marius’s plane touches down, so their welcome party consists of just Grantaire and Cosette, shoulders touching as they wait impatiently at the arrivals gate. The moment they turn the corner into the waiting entrance, Marius throws his luggage down and twirls a laughing Cosette around, peppering her face with kisses as harried travelers push past them. Enjolras meets Grantaire with a quiet smile and a quick touch of lips; Jehan is, for once, thankful for their shared hatred of PDA as he’s hit with a wave of jealousy so strong he nearly cries. He watches as Enjolras and Marius notice the circles under Cosette’s eyes and how Grantaire’s collarbone, exposed by the torn collar of his t-shirt, is sharp and obvious under pale skin. Jehan sees their worn expressions underneath their happiness, and the ball of _worry_ that has been churning in his stomach for a month grows just a little bit larger. He doesn’t know what happened while they were in London, but hell if he isn’t going to find out and _fix_ it.

The drive back into the city is quiet. Cosette and Marius fall asleep within minutes of leaving the parking lot, curled against each other as much as possible. Jehan sits next to them, watching Boston pass them by as they move further and further into the belly of his city. Grantaire and Enjolras sit in the front, speaking quietly over the low hum of the radio, and at one of the red lights, Enjolras cups his hand under Grantaire’s jaw, thumb running over his boyfriend’s cheekbone. Jehan’s jealousy burns hot again with an edge of guilt over his emotions, and he spends the rest of the ride staring out the window.

Jehan’s left with a solid two hours of preparing and unpacking before Courfeyrac is due home. Combeferre comes into Jehan’s bedroom as he’s unzipping the last of his garment bags. They’ve already had their catch-up time when Jehan walked in, and then again over sandwiches Bahorel had left for them this morning.

“Shit, that’s a lot of clothes. Are those all new?” Combeferre asks, leaning against the doorjam, and Jehan can only grin as he unfolds an old, thrifted shirt from four seasons ago, brightly colored and still smelling of London.

“You can never have too many clothes,” he says. “However, no. These are timeless pieces, perfect for the transition from late spring to summer.” Jehan loves his friends, he really does, but their disinterest in fashion is slowly killing him. He doesn’t leave Vogue and Vanity Fair in the bathroom for kicks, though he’s noticed over the years that motorcycle rags and Time Magazine are the only ones on top of the pile.

Combeferre nods and shrugs his shoulders. “It’s just that they’re in such mint condition, I thought they must be new.” The gleam in his eye is heart-breakingly familiar.

Jehan laughs quietly but says nothing. _Touché, ‘Ferre_. He puts his clothes on hangers in companionable silence, which is broken after a few seconds by Combeferre clearing his throat.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” Jehan blanches, looking up from his careful dissection of potential reunion-with-Courfeyrac outfits. 

“You’re coiled as tight as a spring, Jehan. At first I thought it was just nerves about being home again and seeing Courf,” Combeferre says slowly, choosing his words carefully and his voice is something Jehan has _missed_ , slight Southern accent and all. “But I’m starting to think that maybe that’s not the case. Is there anything you want to talk about? Problems with Courf?” 

Jehan sighs and puts down the vintage Vera Wang button up he had been holding. “Things with Courfeyrac have been…strained. Nothing you need to worry about,” he rushes at Combeferre’s raised eyebrow. “I think the semester has just gotten between us, that’s all. We probably just need the summer to get things back to normal.”

“Well, did he say something to you? Has he done anything?”

He shakes his head; it’s true. Courfeyrac’s done _nothing_ , which is mostly the problem. “Nothing bad, no. He’s been distant,” he winces, thinking of Enjolras and sangria and a night spent clutching the toilet. “I think I'm just being paranoid." He checks the time on his phone- nearly two o'clock, and he still has _so_ much to do before Courfeyrac gets here.

\-----

2:45 comes and goes with no sign or word from Courfeyrac. When the clock in the living room chimes at four, Jehan is _livid_. Just as he picks his phone up from his bed to text Courfeyrac _again_ and remind him just who has whom by the balls in their relationship, he hears the front door swing open and crash against the wall.

Jehan goes to stand in his doorway, though he can’t see anything down the stairs but Bahorel’s hulking frame and he can’t hear anything but Bahorel loudly recounting the day at the coffee shop and his heart drops again. Bahorel catches sight of him in the doorway and grins, shouting out a “Hey! Look who I found walking here!” before Jehan can disappear into his room and cry for days because Courfeyrac-

\- is right behind Bahorel, wholesome and sweet and smiling so wide his face is about to crack, holding a bouquet of flowers against his chest so his chin is all multicolored reflection.

“Hi,” Jehan breathes, and he steps from his room out onto the walkway, stopping at the top of the stairs and resting his hand on the railing. Courfeyrac moves quickly, taking the steps two at a time and babbling something about dead cellphones and no working T trains before he reaches the top of the stairs.

Jehan isn’t sure who moves first, but their arms are around each other and Courfeyrac’s face is buried in his neck, wet with tears that Jehan didn’t even notice until now, and he can’t even be upset because _Courfeyrac_ is here. They’re together again, strong against distance and foreign countries and shitty Skype connections. Things will be normal again, though Courfeyrac looks exhausted and has definitely lost some weight (Jehan will have to see to that immediately; he isn’t interested in playing the xylophone when he touches his boyfriend) but he still smells like Courfeyrac and looks like Courfeyrac and feels like Courfeyrac, just as Jehan left him in January.

They let go when a thorn from one of the roses stabs Jehan in the back, and they stand an arms width apart, drinking each other in before Courfeyrac catches his mouth in a gentle kiss. _Oh,_ Jehan loves this boy, feels the devotion right down to the very marrow of his bones.


End file.
